VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne-Chapter 13: That’s not supposed to be there, is it?

Belladonna eventually slowed her pace from a haphazard jog to a slightly hurried trudge as she made her way through the forest. Even when she could no longer hear the players screams, she kept trudging along, just in case it wasn’t distance that was the reason they had stopped.

She didn’t head directly back too town. Instead she took a round about way. It was longer, most definitely, but it was much smarter. Perhaps those players might hold a grudge over her little trick, but they might not. Most of them were professionals after all, and professionals have standards. Usually.

Regardless of whether they would have it out for her or not, the round about way was simply safer. Any idiot would watch the direct path back, looking to get an actual ambush this time instead of a failed one..

Which actually might succeed this time since she was still injured.

Belladonna dumped the wolf’s body down in a safe-ish area and took a quick look around before focusing on her mangled hand. For the last minute or so, there had been a deeply uncomfortable and irritating itching coming from the split portion, feeling like she had hundreds of ants crawling on top of it, nipping at her constantly.

But when she looked at the torn meat slab of hand, it was not ants she saw, but worms. Worms made of her own flesh as her skin literally crawled and wriggled, slowly knitting itself across the gap and pulling the two halves back together.

The bleeding had clotted and stopped by now, and before her very eyes new muscles were wriggling and forming themselves, with skin slowly forming over that as it knitted together string by string like a fleshy mitten. Which, come to think of it, really was what hands were like.

There were even hints of new bones sprouting their way up from where her ring finger used to be, like pale bamboo shoots. While her other fingers occasionally let out snapping and cracking noises as they twitched and shifted, slowly reorienting themselves into the proper position.

’This must be the vitality score at work. Instead of having a health bar to increase, it must increase the healing rate. I wonder... if someone got that stat high enough, could they heal faster than anyone could damage them?

Is this the true final form of face tanks?’

The image of one of her brother’s old gaming friends immediately popped into her mind, someone that he used to get along well with when he was a part of his old guild. Maybe that guy was here too.

Reminding herself to look for him and actually perform the hellish act of socialising once this event was over, Belladonna focused back on her slowly regenerating hand.

It was in no way fast, definitely nowhere close to the insane healing factors of certain comic book characters. But it was certainly faster than a normal human could heal. By her estimate it would take maybe 8 more hours until the hand was whole once again.

Not ideal. Especially since she ruined her glove in the process, leaving it more mangled than the hand it was protecting.

That was a good glove, it was going to be good for punching people. She really liked punching people.

Letting out a sigh, Belladonna tore her dagger from the wolf’s back and licked the blood from the blade, only realising afterwards that it could have been a huge mistake that could ruin her stat bonuses.

She didn’t even think about doing it, it was like licking the spoon after stirring chocolate, simply a natural instinct that couldn’t be helped.

However, while a notification appeared before her eyes, projected from the crystal on the back of her remaining hand, it wasn’t the notification she had been expecting.

[Sanguine Essence Consumed. Grievous damage detected, Converting Sanguine Essence into Vital Essence.]

Belladonna frowned at the notification, but before she could even have a chance to question it, the dull itching in her hand turned into a stabbing, burning sensation like she was being repeatedly jabbed by thousands of red hot needles.

In response to the sensation, the wondrous process of her hand regrowth took a massive leap forwards. The bones sprouted up, growing centimetres in the same time it previously took them to grow millimetres.

Muscles eagerly crawled over those bones like some tendrilled creature ensnaring its lunch, while her pale skin rapidly knitted itself together over the top.

Her mangled fingers immediately snapped back into proper position with a few sickening crunches one after the other. Starting to repair the bone now that they could actually be considered fingers again.

However it didn’t last for long. The hot stabbing only lasted for a second, maybe a touch more, before it reverted back to a dull itching whilst the healing process returned to its previous pace. It did leave her with half a palm, however, and the true beginnings of a ring finger starting to grow in.

’Well now... Would you look at that.’

Having not explored terribly much of the town, Belladonna had no idea if the other players had discovered health potions yet, or if such a thing even existed. However even a solo player like her had enough game knowledge to know that such things were vitally important in the early game. Pun intended.

But even if they did find them, now so had she. And while they would have to buy, or possibly spend time crafting them, she could simply drink the blood of her opponents and heal on the spot, or at the very least increase her healing over time.

Belladonna spun the knife in her hand and, with a gleeful smile that looked quite disturbing considering the situation, started to gut and butcher the wolf with her rudimentary skills. It was a process made more difficult because of her useless hand, as well as the terrible condition of the corpse around the throat area.

But eventually she got the pelt off in a decent condition, even if she had to remove the entire lower jaw portion and most of the throat. More importantly, she had the heart in her hand.

She lifted it above her head, squeezing it tight in her grasp and let all those delicious juices spurt from its valves, dripping onto her eagerly waiting tongue in a gory crimson waterfall. Belladonna eagerly gulped down the blood, the wondrous metallic taste coating her throat, until the entire heart was squeezed dry.

A content sigh left her lips, as she licked them hungrily, not wanting to waste a drop despite the fact she had made an utter mess in her spectacle and dropped more than she was licking up. Even still, her lips retained a bloody red tint to them as she smirked devilishly to herself and looked at her hand once more.

The searing stabbing was still going on, as her body processed the blood, but it had already started to rapidly rebuild her hand. The 8 hours had been massively reduced down to a single hour, and would have probably been faster if she had a better vitality stat.

With the healing process once more sped up, Belladonna quickly finished her butchering by slicing the wolf meat into more manageable cuts and stuffing them into her bag. The organs were placed inside the removed pelt, which was then rolled up to keep them contained, and placed gently on top of the meat.

With all the butchered meat she had put in this hemp bag, its base had already been stained red. It was probably time to get a new one. But that would have to wait until she was back in town.

With everything packed away, all that was left was blood stains on the grass, as well as a strange azure crystal that laid in Belladonna’s hand.

She rolled it in her fingers curiously. It was prismatic in nature, but it had rough and uncut edges. It looked incredibly like a sapphire, with all of the rock removed, before it was cut and polished into something more pretty.

Something like that wouldn’t have been strange if it came from a Stonemuncher, but since it came from a wolf it was quite curious. Especially since it hadn’t even been in its stomach, as if it had eaten it.

Instead it was attached to the middle of the beast’s lungs, bridging them together, like some cancerous crystalline growth.

Belladonna had no idea what it was, or even how it had gotten there, but her gamer instincts were telling her this could easily be a rare drop, so she stuffed it into her bag alongside the rest of the wolf and quickly moved on her way.

The sounds of raised voices were already carrying into her portion of the forest.

However when she heard the contents of those idiots, who weren’t even bothering to whisper, she couldn’t help but laugh wickedly to herself.

There was the distinct sound of a woman’s voice, irritation absolutely clear in her tone, as she hissed at a silent companion.

"I’m telling you, It has to be around here somewhere! That bitch took everything from us, but she let slip about the trainer! If we can all get some skills, then we can easily get our revenge on her! That bitch will rue the day she messed with me.

I mean how dare she touch my precious face! Doesn’t she know who I am? She has to! Everyone knows who I am! I’m me!"